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Page 8 Retriever

Climbing the ladder of Renovatiof by Rose DeLaine Theatre X. Audience Y. An equation of success-i n a wheelchai r mind and matters, and a look at the times. For David Schneider, this adds up to, I Used hy Carol Lewis to Like . This Place Before They Started Existing within a world of the "normal", have trouble identifying the numbers and Making All Those Renovations. the handicapped student is often stereotyped designating the floor levels. Likewise, excur­ Somewhere in his creative stream of con­ to be a helpless and totally dependent sions up and down the flight of stairs leading sciousness, David Schneider, author of Ren­ invalid. to the library are taken with hesitant strides. ovations. was gripped by the impact of Vanessa Lowery. a psychology major, For those confined to a wheelchair, the world events and society's progress. In speaks about her disability. distance to and from class seems like a long response to the daily news. he wrote three "Yes, I recognize that I have a visual and strenous marathon when the usual route plays for Theatre X, a -based act­ impairment. and yes. I do realize that there is blocked by the sudden existence of hard­ ing company, founded in 1969 . One of these, are times when I do have to have a little extra hats and brick. Renovations, was first produced in 1980 at help. However, that does not mean that I am Like any student attending this or any the Mickery Theatre in Amsterdam, Hoi­ an invalid. I can still take care of myself. I other university, handicapped students land, where the company performs regu­ can still basically function normally. I am expect the school's administration to respect larly. The play is a highly compact sketch of not a totally dependent person. I am as inde­ and confront those problems that might daily life: pain, humor, joy, boredom, confu­ pendent as I can possibly be with my disabil­ hinder their academic and social needs. sion, and despair are all congruent elements ity. I meet challenges the way everybody else Sadie Fletcher reflects on the scope of admi­ of this guest performance at the Baltimore does." nistrative responsibility. Theatre Project. Afflicted with and confined "We are here to make sure that the handi­ Seating 100 or more. the Theatre Project to a wheelchair. John Meitor says, "I have capped student has the same opportunity in is a very laid-back, unornamented play­ never liked the term 'handicapped' because it the class as the other students. We make sure house located at a dark end of West Preston usually implies that a person is unable to our programs and courses offered to the Photo by B. Lisberger Street. A large white bar is used for the cope. A disabled person is a person limited non-impaired students are atso available for This past Friday, construction workers John production set. From this arrangement, all because of some cause. whether it be physio­ the impaired students." Johnson and Ron Hamilton expanded the rear doorway of the Hillcrest building to make of the scenery and background is maneu­ Lowery says. "Well, the administration's logical or mental. It more accessible to the handicapped. vered. Something is on every shelf and "Disabled does not necessarily mean actions that ha ve been done since I've been inept. " here (1979), have been good. They have According to Sadie Fletcher. Program made an effort to have more electric doors Director for Student Affairs and an admired placed in different buildings and they have "advocate" for the handicapped, the exact started providing reader service to visually number of handicapped students in attend­ impaired students. ance at U M Be is difficult to estimate. "The professors themselves have been "We have no way of knowing how many really cooperative about making special disabled students there actually are because arrangements for tests and stuff like that." we don't require students to indicate their John Meitor has a different point of view. handicap. It is only through self-indi\.:ation "The administration has done a lot. But, if that we know who they are." a totally disabled person asked me if he Presently. the Office of Student Affairs should come here, I would quite frankly accomodates the visually impaired. the deaf, have to say, no. They are not able to handle cerebral palsy victims. and those confined to that situation because they have not been wheelchair. exposed to the problem." Beyond personal problems that are uni­ Whether he is easily identified by wheel­ que to each individual. a majority of the chair or crutch, or subtly confirmed byeye­ problems faced by the handicapped are glasses or hearing aid. the handicapped tangible and obstructive. student goes on day by day, and lecture by For the blind. the breath-saving elevator lecture. is often off limits because the totally blind No power shortage with RE-A C-TOR; Ex-Head Jerry rigs a strong solo disc

by Barry Meisel accustomed to hearing from Young recently. and /RE-AC-TOR "Southern Pacific" is about a conductor Neil Young has released 17 solo forced into retirement: "It was 'Mr. and appeared on a half-dozen others since he Jones,/We've got to let you go.1 It's started recording in 1967. In that time, he's company policy. I You've got a pension, danced between the musical styles of though.'1 I I put in my time.1 I put in my country I folk and straight hard rock. I n fact, time. I N ow I'm left to rolll Down the long on two of his most recent efforts - Rust decline. " Never Sleeps and Hawks and Doves - Accompanying Young ori RE-AC-TOR Jerry Harrison Young divided his musical preferences is, of course, Crazy Horse. That is, Frank rather neatly by putting all of the folksy Sampedro on rhythm guitar, on change./They stay the way they are·1 IYou tunes on side one and the hard-core stuff on bass, on drums, with Young were born to rock.1 You'll never be an opera side two. himself playing most of the leads. The whole star. " Well, Young has done things a little texture of the is exactly like the differently with his new release, RE-A C­ second side of , with only Jerry Harrison/The Red and the Black TOR. He starts off side one with hard rock, the piano on "Get Back On It" to provide a As a vocalist and writer for the Talking and ends side two with hard rock, and fills counterpoint to the rest of the album's Heads, seemed to embody the the space between the two with - hard rock. electric guitars and drums. Many of the heart and soul of what was all This disc rolls on with the steady, driving songs ("T-Bone", "Surfer Joe and Moe the about. When he left to pursue his own career beat of a train on a coast-to-coast run. Sleaze", independently of the band, there lingered a Side two, in fact, opens with a pounding suspicion that he took the creative energy of railroad tune, "Southern Pacific." The the band with him. tone of the song is a little Jerry Harrison, lead guitarist for the darker than we're Heads, has just proved emphatically that this was not the case by releasing his own solo effort, The Red and the Black. "Rapid Transit") If you can imagine 's use the staccato percussion set to Africanized percussion, you'll come Young employed so effectively close to what Harrison is doing here. You on "Welfare Mothers." Two others can see that Harrison is following the same ("Southern Pacific" and "Shots'') use a hard­ path that the Heads were pursuing on their driving fast tempo, railroad beat vaguely last effort, , but there are reminiscent of the one Heart used on crucial differences. "Barracuda" some years back. Harrison has slowed down the tempo It's interesting to note that, like the considerably on The Red and the Black. In Nell Young Stones, Bowie, and , age has not addition, through his production he has diminished Young's capacity for, or interest' added quite a bit more "space" between the in, hard-core . But, like Young instruments. The result is that the musical himself says on the first song of the energy is more directed and less frenetic than album, "